


Stranger Than Love or Loss

by Violsva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Steve Rogers, Disabled Characters, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Not Actually a Coffee Shop AU, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-07-29 17:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 16,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16269005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: Steve runs into his childhood best friend at a coffee shop. They start dating. Everything seems great.It’s not.





	1. Looking at Your Own History in the Faces of Your Friends

Steve had been planning to do his layout sketches in a park, but when it looked like it was going to start raining he turned around and started looking for a coffee shop. He’d just been paid for an illustrating job and he had more spare cash than usual; he could afford to be caffeinated while he worked out the next job’s designs.

He thought the barista was familiar when he walked in, but he wasn’t sure why. He definitely wasn’t anyone Steve knew now; he was pretty distinctive, with hair like that. Steve squinted at him and tried to figure it out as he walked up to the counter, and then, when he was close enough to see his eyes, it was obvious.

“ _Bucky_?”

Bucky blinked at him, opened his mouth, closed it again, and asked, “Steve?”

They looked at each other, and Steve could feel his expression turning into a grin just as Bucky’s did. “Oh my God, it’s been how long?” asked Bucky, reaching over the counter. Steve took his hand, and found himself almost in a hug, or as close to one as you could get with a two foot wide counter between you. “Jesus, you look exactly the same. What have you been doing? Man, give me a second—no, I’ll get your order, on my tab, and then I’ll go on break, okay?”

“Sure,” said Steve, and he ordered, and Bucky called it over and added, “And a flat white for me, I’m going on break!”

“Screw you, James, look at these crowds,” said the other barista. There were three customers besides Steve in the entire café.

Bucky pulled his visor off before coming around to the front of the counter. “Steve,” he said, grinning down at him. Steve realized it had been—really?—almost ten years since he last saw Bucky, and he froze, but Bucky opened his arms a little and Steve could step in and actually hug him. He’d put on a lot of muscle in those ten years.

Bucky held on longer than Steve had expected somehow, but Steve really didn’t mind. “Americano and a flat white for the lovebirds,” said Bucky’s coworker, and they pulled apart to take their drinks, Bucky casually flipping the barista off.

“C’mon and sit down,” he said to Steve. “Man, when was the last time we saw each other, ten years ago?”

“My eighteenth birthday,” said Steve. “Summer after graduation.” He’d been so glad Bucky had been able to come, after he’d moved to Indiana in ninth grade.

“Little bit less than ten years, then.” Bucky grinned at him, and Steve suddenly felt incredibly awkward, because Bucky was _hot_ now—not that he hadn’t been before, he remembered feeling the same way on his eighteenth birthday, but _wow_. “How are you? What are you doing?”

Steve told him about art and commissions, and then asked, “And you?”

“Just working places like this,” said Bucky, which come to think of it was weird, because hadn’t he been going into engineering or something? “I haven’t been doing anything interesting.”

Steve wondered if he could say it, and then added, “Apart from getting hot.”

Bucky blinked, and then grinned, and replied, “I’m not the only one,” giving Steve a slow look of appraisal that Steve could feel making him blush. Which was ridiculous, because as far as Steve could tell he still looked exactly the same as he had at fourteen. “You still living around here?”

“Yeah, further into Red Hook, but yeah. How long have you been back in the city?”

“A while. Sorry I didn’t think to look you up before, man. Here, give me your number, we’ll meet up.” Bucky handed Steve his phone and Steve texted himself from it.

When Steve looked up Bucky’s head was tilted back and a bit to the left, and he was staring distantly at something. It took Steve a second to get his attention enough to hand him his phone back. “Thanks,” Bucky said. “I just realized I need to do something. Gotta go.”

“Uh, okay,” said Steve, as Bucky stood up. “I’m so glad we met again.” Bucky just nodded. “See you later.”

“See you.” Bucky disappeared into the back of the café. Steve tried not to stare after him.


	2. I Might Be Hoping About This

Steve looked Bucky up on Facebook when he got home, and ... huh, Bucky wasn’t on Facebook, or maybe had really strict privacy settings. Well, good for him. And that helped explain why they’d lost touch with each other. But he had his number, anyway.

He made himself wait two days before calling it, but when he did Bucky didn’t pick up. He sighed and went to bid on commissions.

The next day, though, Bucky called him.

“Steve!” he said, and Steve felt warm suddenly. “How are you?”

“Good, how are you?”

“I’m doing great, want to meet up?”

“Yeah,” said Steve immediately. “Yeah, that’d be great. When?”

“Tonight?” Bucky asked. “We could have dinner.”

Steve said, “Um,” because that sounded a lot like a date, and then put himself together again. “Yeah, dinner tonight’s good. Do you have a place in mind?”

Steve met Bucky outside the restaurant and Bucky slung an arm around his shoulders as they went in, like he’d used to, and Steve leaned on him and let him. “So should I call you James now?” he asked, sliding into the booth. “I can if you prefer it.”

“No,” said Bucky, reaching across the table to rest his hand on Steve’s for a moment. “Bucky’s good. Tell me what’s been going on for you since high school.”

Steve suddenly realized what Bucky didn’t know, and at once he couldn’t think of anything to say except _My mom died of cancer_. “Um.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, squeezing his hand. “What is it?” He looked seriously concerned, and Steve remembered Bucky supporting him through his heart surgery and just said it.

“Oh God,” Bucky said.

“When I was twenty-one, not recently.” Bucky got out of his seat, came around the table, and held his arms out, and Steve stood into a hug. This seemed new, this amount of touching, but—it was good.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was years ago. But. Thank you.” He gave himself another second, then relaxed his arms a little, and Bucky let go of him.

“You didn’t get any taller, did you?” Bucky said, smiling a little.

“Guess it’s too late to hope for a growth spurt now.” Steve blinked, rubbed his face, and sat back down, pretty sure that he looked normal. The waitress came over, looking a little awkward, and they ordered drinks.

“But I finished art school,” Steve said, “and I guess I’m doing pretty well now—I’m supporting myself freelance, in New York.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiled, right into Steve’s eyes. “That’s good—that’s amazing. Have you lived here all your life?”

“Not quite. I moved to DC for a year, after college, to be with Peggy, my ex-girlfriend, but—” Steve shrugged. “That didn’t work out. So I came back.” He didn’t want this to turn into _Emotional Minefields with Steve Rogers_ , so he added, “How about you? What have you been doing with your life?”

“I, uh, I don’t know. I’ve been working a lot of jobs like the coffee shop since college.”

“Weren’t you going to study engineering?”

Bucky frowned. “Yeah, I did. I—I guess I had trouble getting a job in my field.”

“Recession, huh?” Steve said sympathetically.

“Yeah. Thought it’d be better when I moved back here, but...” He shrugged.

“When was that, anyway?”

“Two years ago. I guess I should have looked you up sooner, sorry. But—” he reached across the table, and Steve took his hand “—I’m so glad to see you, Steve, you have no idea.”

The waitress came back with their drinks, and they realized they hadn’t even looked at the menu, and that kept them occupied for a while.

“So who do you hang out with these days?”

“My roommate, Sam, he knows like half the city, so I end up hanging out with his friends mostly. They’re great people. And you?”

Bucky shrugged. “Coworkers, I guess.”

“But you’re not just working all the time. Got any hobbies?”

“Not really. I cook, I go to the gym a lot. That’s about it.” He paused, and grinned at Steve. “You play any sports now?” Right, when Bucky’d known him he’d been sick, and then recovering from the heart surgery.

“Not these days,” said Steve, “but yes, actually, at college. Ultimate Frisbee intramural champion.” He flexed his bicep, and Bucky laughed and flexed his own, which Steve had to admit was much more impressive.

“And you were okay for that?” Bucky asked with a moment of serious concern.

“I was _fine_ ,” Steve said, and Bucky raised his hands placatingly. Steve relented. “I asked the campus health people before I started. I really am all better now—well, okay, no, I’ve still got the asthma, but that’s manageable.”

Their food came, and they kept talking between bites. Bucky still didn’t really talk about his life much, but it was good, familiar, like when they were younger and already knew everything about each other, so they didn’t have to talk about it. They left the restaurant still talking, and Bucky’s arm brushed against Steve’s. “You live near here?” Steve asked, and then wondered if that sounded too ... something.

“Yeah, a few blocks that way.”

“I’ll walk you home.” Did that sound stupid? He looked up and saw that Bucky was smirking, a little, and raising an eyebrow.

“Sure, okay.”

“Don’t say it,” said Steve, bristling.

“Sure.” Bucky grinned, but it wasn’t nasty.

“I get into a lot fewer fights now,” Steve said.

“Sure.”

“And if I did I’d be _fine_.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Bucky was laughing, but quietly. “Come on, superhero, walk me home.”

Steve worked up his nerve as they walked, and at the door to Bucky’s building said, hoping he sounded casual, “So, was this a date?”

Bucky smiled, leaned in, and pressed his lips to Steve’s. “Now it is,” he said, straightening.

“Come back here.” Steve pulled him down and kissed him again. Closed mouth, just a couple times, but he was sure he was grinning like an idiot as he walked to the subway.


	3. Maybe the Worst Is Behind

“So, last night was fun,” Steve said, and maybe it was a bit early to call Bucky back but he’d always thought dating ‘rules’ were stupid.

“Yeah, want to do it again? You could come over, I could make dinner.”

“That would be great.”

***

“So,” Bucky said a few days later when Steve walked in, “I haven’t actually started because I wasn’t sure if you were a vegetarian or something, and I remember you had health issues. Risotto okay? It’ll have cheese in it.”

“Cheese is fine. Most of my issues aren’t actually food related.” He really didn’t feel like giving the whole list right now.

“Then it’s risotto.”

“I can help, if you want.”

“You’re a guest. You can sit at the table and drink wine.”

“Bull,” said Steve, following Bucky into the kitchen. “Give me something to chop.” Bucky sighed, handed him an onion, and waved at the knife block, smiling. Then he started getting out mushrooms and butter and rice and pans and they talked about the illustration series Steve was doing and some guy at Bucky’s gym. When Steve was done with the onion Bucky put a pan on the stove and Steve handed him the cutting board and then stopped and stared at his left arm.

“Whoa, is that a—” Steve suddenly realized that that was not tactful. “Um. Is that a prosthetic?”

Bucky looked at him, and then at the arm, and laughed. “Yeah.”

“Wow, I had no idea. Sorry! Just, it must be really advanced.” Now that he was actually looking at it, he could see the difference between the silicon covering and Bucky’s skin, but it moved normally and from a distance it was indistinguishable.

Bucky shrugged his right shoulder. “Kinda.”

Steve really wanted to ask how it had happened, but Bucky was clearly uncomfortable with the subject. And they weren’t that close, he had to remind himself. Not anymore. “Sorry for mentioning it.”

“Huh? No, it’s fine.” Bucky picked up the cutting board and scraped the onions into the pan, and Steve tried not to stare at how smooth his left hand’s movements were. He didn’t know much about prosthetics, but he’d had no idea there was anything out there that could move so naturally. But he really shouldn’t be staring.

“So how’s the coffee place?”

“Oh, I’m actually working at an Italian restaurant in the Heights now. On grill.”

“Oh, sorry. How’s that?”

They shifted to talking about their childhood as Bucky made the risotto, and over dinner. Afterwards Steve took the dishes over to the sink, but Bucky grabbed his hand before he could turn the tap on. “You’re a guest, Jesus, Steve,” he said. “Anyway, better things to do.” He turned Steve around and kissed him, and Steve gave in happily.

“Sorry if your neck cramps up,” Steve said after a while. Bucky tilted his head.

“I can fix that,” he said, and then he grabbed Steve’s hips and picked him up.

“What are you—?” Steve yelped, flailing a little before steadying himself as Bucky set him on the counter. Bucky slid in between his legs.

“Much better,” he said, reaching up to pull Steve’s head down. Steve decided he’d forgive the manhandling. Mmm, definitely.

Bucky’s hands slid around Steve’s waist and Steve let himself push into the kissing. He wasn’t used to leaning down for this, and it was kind of nice. Bucky certainly seemed to like it, pressing as close as possible and tipping his head back so Steve was almost bending over him. Steve’s fingers ran through his long hair.

Bucky hummed quietly into the kiss and Steve felt it sink warmly into him. His hips jerked forward, and Bucky encouraged them, pulling him closer to the edge of the counter. His right hand slid up the back of Steve’s shirt.

“God,” Steve whispered.

Bucky pulled back enough to say, “That’s not my name,” grinning at him, and Steve pulled his hair in revenge. Bucky laughed and pressed his face under Steve’s chin to kiss his neck. Steve couldn’t help his reaction to that, tilting to give Bucky better access and trying to get even closer to him.

Steve got pretty distracted after that, until Bucky’s fingers brushed his nipple and he jumped.

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” said Steve. “But can we slow it down a bit?”

“Sure.” Bucky pulled his hand out from under Steve’s shirt. “Damn, you sound good, though.”

Steve hadn’t really realized he’d been making noise, and he blushed. Bucky laughed and kissed him again. “Over the shirt is good?”

“Oh yeah.”


	4. So Sweet and So Soft

The next Sunday was the first really hot day of the year, and after Steve came back from church he and Bucky spent the afternoon eating ice cream in a park. Steve tried not to just watch Bucky’s mouth the whole time, but it was difficult.

When they were both finished their ice cream Bucky turned toward a tree and kissed Steve under it, pushing him gently against the bark. When he pushed Bucky away Steve was breathless and pretty sure his face was glowing like a stoplight.

“Um,” he said. “I’m not really a PDA kind of person.”

“Fair enough,” said Bucky. “Want to go somewhere less public?”

Steve hadn’t actually thought it was possible for him to blush harder. “Sure.”

They went back to Bucky’s apartment—“How do you afford this place without a roommate, anyway?”—and made out on the couch for hours with Indiana Jones in the background. Then Steve had to get home to have dinner with Sam and Luke and Claire and Jess, and Bucky let him go without complaint, didn’t push for anything more than a long kiss goodbye.

“So,” Sam asked when Steve got in, “how’s the boyfriend?”

“He’s not—we’re—I mean, we haven’t talked about it—”

“How’s the guy you would like to be your boyfriend?” Sam asked, grinning wider.

“Shut up.”

“Am I right?” 

“Yeah, you’re right, fine. He’s good.”

“I’ll bet he is.”

“Don’t you start,” Steve said, and resigned himself to being mercilessly teased all through dinner.

***

Bucky usually got Tuesdays off, and Steve called him on one when they’d been dating for a bit more than a month and he was more or less comfortable saying _boyfriend_.

“So, uh, Sam’s going to be visiting his sister this weekend. You could come stay over.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky asked. Then, after a moment, “ _Oh_?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, blushing.

“Well. I can’t take off work with that short notice, but you’re close, I could come over after?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

“I won’t get in until like eleven on Friday.”

“That’s fine, I’m an artist, not like I need to get up early in the morning.”

“You get up early anyway,” Bucky said. “I know you.”

Steve spent Friday evening looking for something to do and not finding it. He picked up pencils, graphite, a brush, his tablet stylus, and put them all down again after five minutes. He cleaned the bathroom sink and collapsed three boxes for recycling. He ate seven salt and vinegar chips and then brushed his teeth. Eventually he sat on the couch and determinedly stared at a book of Paul Strand’s photography until his phone rang at five after eleven.

“Hey, it’s Bucky. I’m downstairs.”

“Come on up,” Steve said, buzzing him in and trying to resist the temptation to go wait right in front of the door until Bucky knocked.

But maybe Bucky wouldn’t have minded, because when Steve opened the door for him he stepped in, smiled, and pulled Steve into a kiss. Steve kissed him back and backed up, so they were out of the doorway, and Bucky kicked the door shut behind him.

Steve loved how Bucky kissed him, as if he needed to be closer every second. As if Steve was water in the desert. He’d tried to paint something about that, but it hadn’t come through. But maybe he’d try again.

Bucky’s right hand was in Steve’s hair and his left was along Steve’s back and Steve pressed Bucky closer to him with his hands on his shoulderblades and matched Bucky’s tongue with his. Like this he could feel all of Bucky, all of the still-surprising muscles and size, a slight weirdness at his left shoulder that was probably something to do with the prosthesis, his stubble after a full day of work, his erection starting to press into Steve’s stomach. He pushed closer and realized that he was pushing Bucky up against the door.

“Yeah, _Steve_ ,” Bucky whispered, and Steve leaned up into the kiss. Bucky groaned and Steve shifted to kiss his neck, nipping at the corner of his jaw.

“Uh, no marks,” Bucky gasped.

“Okay,” Steve whispered, drawing back a little. But he kissed his way down to the collar of Bucky’s shirt and Bucky groaned and pressed his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve realized he was rubbing up against Bucky’s thigh and backed off.

Instead he went to his knees, a little hesitantly. He hadn’t done this in a while, or much at all, but he really wanted to. “Oh God,” Bucky muttered, and Steve unzipped his fly. He started slow, and then he leaned in and put his mouth around Bucky properly, and suddenly Bucky gasped and made a strangled noise, jerked back, and came on Steve’s face.

“Sorry, shit, sorry,” he said before it was even over. Steve blinked, a little stunned. He pulled away and stood up. “Sorry, it’s been a while,” Bucky said.

“No problem,” said Steve, coming back to himself and going to grab a kleenex. He wiped his cheek as Bucky zipped himself back up, avoiding Steve’s gaze. “No, really, it’s fine,” Steve said, coming closer and putting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky smiled ruefully at him, and Steve kissed him. “Come to bed.”

“Yeah, okay.” Bucky picked up the duffel bag he’d dropped when he came in and followed Steve into his bedroom.


	5. This Is the Clock Upon the Wall

“So am I going to meet Bucky?” Sam asked over dinner that week.

“You want to?”

“Course I do. Invite him over. We’ll have a party if you want to make it less like meeting the parents.” Steve rolled his eyes.

So they invited a bunch of people for pizza and game night, and Steve tried to treat it like any other Sunday night. It had to be Sunday, because Bucky worked weekends, and that meant that enough people couldn’t come that they wouldn’t have trouble fitting everyone in the living room. Bucky was the last to arrive, by which point half of them were playing Starfarers of Catan and Steve was trying not to spend the whole evening checking for texts.

“Hey,” said Steve. “So, guys, this is Bucky. Or, uh, James,” he added.

“Either’s fine,” said Bucky, smiling.

“And Bucky, this is Sam, my roommate, Natasha, Sam’s sister Sarah, Jess, Carol...” He pointed around the room. Everyone waved. “Bucky was my best friend as a kid until he moved to Indiana.”

“Who moves _to_ Indiana?” Jess muttered from the Catan table.

“And we met up again in April,” Steve finished, ignoring her. Natasha and Bucky were frowning at each other. “Um, have you two met?”

“No,” said Natasha slowly. “No, I don’t think so.”

Bucky’s face cleared. “No, sorry, you just reminded me of someone.”

“Okay. You guys want to play Pandemic?”

They set up the game, and explained the rules to Bucky, and Steve got him pizza and a drink. A few minutes into the game when they were drawing Infection cards Bucky looked at his slice of pizza and said, “This is the worst game to play while eating. You could have warned me.” Sam flipped over New York and reached for a blue cube. “Oh, there we go, that’s me.”

“Natasha will save us from you,” Sam said. “DC to New York?”

“Sure, why not?” Sam moved her pawn over. “I’m curing two people in New York, and then giving Steve this card.”

“Ha,” said Steve, taking the Bogota card and setting it next to the rest of his yellows. “Then I can cure—no, wait, you have to draw first.”

They had two cures and a worrying number of outbreaks when Bucky suddenly tilted his head back and a little left, and said, “I just realized I need to do something.”

“What?” Steve asked, but Bucky was already out of his chair. Steve got up and followed him, but he didn’t catch up until Bucky was at the door.

“You okay?” he asked, putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky glanced back and said, “Yeah, fine.” He didn’t look fine, but Steve couldn’t say what was off. Steve hesitated, then went up on his toes and kissed him. Bucky gasped a little and kissed him back.

But when Steve pulled back Bucky just said, “See you later,” and left.

Steve went back to the living room, where Natasha was frowning and the others were trying not to look curious. Carol was saying something quietly to Jess.

“We freak him out?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, he didn’t say what was wrong,” said Steve. “I’ll text him.”

“Someone from Catan want to take his place?” Sam asked, still frowning.

Steve didn’t get a reply to his text that night, and he knew he wasn’t very social for the rest of the evening. But he didn’t start to seriously worry until he still hadn’t heard anything two days later, and then Bucky sent him a text saying, _I’m fine, don’t worry. Want to meet up tomorrow?_

When Steve asked him about it Bucky shrugged and changed the subject, and Steve tried not to be hurt.

“You weren’t even there for an hour, was it the people?” But that would be _really_ weird, because this was _Bucky_ , and he’d always been extroverted.

“No, really, it’s nothing to do with you,” Bucky said, looking enormously uncomfortable. “Please don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Steve decided. “Cook anything interesting lately?”

Steve tried to pay attention to whether Bucky seemed nervous in social situations after that, but as far as Steve could tell he never was, and he didn’t disappear like that again.

But then again, they weren’t generally in social situations like that. Once in a while Bucky would come with Steve when he was going out with Sam and some of their friends, but Sam didn’t like Bucky—he didn’t say anything, but Steve was pretty sure. It didn’t take more than two times when Bucky came over and Sam basically disappeared for Steve to get the hint.

“Don’t worry about it. If he makes you happy, that’s all that matters,” Sam had said when Steve asked. So Steve just tried to keep them apart until he figured out what they had against each other.

And he didn’t meet any of Bucky’s friends. Or, actually, he didn’t hear anything about any friends either, just Bucky’s coworkers and one or two people at his gym. Which, okay, Bucky didn’t have to be really social, that was fine, but. It was weird, that was all. He definitely hadn’t been so solitary when they were kids. But people changed.


	6. A Tunnel From My Window to Yours

July was always hard. Bucky took Steve out for his birthday, and the day after Sam made him a cake, but once Steve’s birthday was over the month was just a long lead up to the anniversary of his mom’s death.

Church helped, and art helped, and he was more or less used to it by now, even if he hoped that it would get better every year.

But if it got better that meant he would have forgotten her. Steve sighed and went back to drafting magazine illustrations.

On the anniversary itself he never knew what to do with himself, but this year he realized that he could hang out with Bucky, and probably he’d end up crying on him, but that would be okay, with Bucky. So he texted him the day before, and didn’t get a reply.

Bucky still hadn’t replied the next morning. Steve texted him again and tried to remember what his work schedule was. For some reason he’d thought Bucky had today off.

Bucky still hadn’t replied after lunch, and Steve frowned at his phone and called him. No answer. He went for a walk.

It was nice to walk around Brooklyn, usually, although today it was hot enough that he had to deliberately slow down a block away from his apartment before he ended up gasping for breath. But a few blocks later he paused to sketch the lines of a fire escape, and tried not to obviously snicker at a couple of hipsters, and tried really really hard to keep his thoughts on what was around him, instead of what had happened seven years ago, or his silent phone in his pocket.

He waved at Mr. Zhang opening up his restaurant, but he didn’t meet anyone else he knew, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t sure if he felt better when he got back to his block—he didn’t feel _worse_ , but everything was starting to seem a little unreal. And Bucky still hadn’t called or texted.

Steve hadn’t expected to get any work done today, so he’d finished all the commissions he had on hand yesterday, and he hadn’t heard back from a couple publishers who might have something for him later. He could bid on something, maybe. He tried to sketch and hated everything he started, and went and looked at a couple half-done canvases and had to put them away before he threw them out. He moderated the hell out of his Instagram comments.

He called Bucky again. No answer, but he’d leave a message—

_Your call has been forwarded to a mailbox that has not been initialized._

Well. It wasn’t like anyone used voicemail much anymore, but...

Seriously, _why_ wasn’t Bucky answering his texts?

Steve gave up on being productive and spent the rest of the day playing phone games—he knew better than to go on Twitter when he felt like this. Sam knocked on his doorframe at seven and said, “Hey man, eat something. You have an art project?”

“No,” Steve said—it was pretty obvious he didn’t. “Just, shitty day. Yeah, okay.” He got up and went to the kitchen and thank God, there were leftovers he could just microwave.

“You want to talk about it?” Sam asked, although he was spinning his phone in one hand and he probably had his own things to do tonight. Steve did want to talk, actually, but he wanted to talk to _Bucky_ , dammit.

“No.”

“Cool.” Sam went to his room, and Steve ate his leftover stir fry and calculated when he could hear back if Bucky was working this evening. Maybe he’d forgotten to charge his phone, in which case he might not call back until after midnight.

Steve put his dishes in the sink and texted Bucky, _Call when you see this, it doesn’t matter if it’s late._

At three am he gave up on his insomnia and took a Benadryl. He still hadn’t heard back.

Bucky called the next morning. “Steve,” he said, almost before Steve had said hello. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, mostly.” Steve was still waking up, actually.

“I forgot to charge my phone, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks for calling. It’s just, yesterday was the anniversary of mom’s death, and—”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it kind of sucks every year.”

“Want to—oh shit, I have to get to work—but it’s the early shift, I’m off at four thirty. Want to come over?”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

Steve called up when he was near the apartment, since the doorbells inside didn’t work, and Bucky was in the lobby to open the inner door for him when he got there. Steve fell onto him, and was wrapped up in strong arms at once. “Hey,” Bucky said into his hair, and Steve held on tight. He did end up crying on Bucky a little that evening, and it helped.


	7. It Grieves Me So to See You in Such Pain

Steve still wasn’t entirely sure how Bucky could afford his apartment without a roommate, but they’d taken advantage of it before. Sam didn’t object to Bucky staying the night, but Steve was still trying not to push them together too much. And Sam would absolutely tease Steve when they were alone.

And Steve liked not having to worry about how much noise either of them was making. He kind of wondered if Bucky would mind him moving in someday, but at five months it was definitely early for that, and if it was going to be that way he’d wait for Bucky to ask.

But he kept some spare clothes there, for nights like tonight, when he didn’t have a deadline the next day. Bucky met him in the lobby, and Steve leaned up and kissed him. Bucky was grinning when he pulled away, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders as they went to the stairs.

“How’s things?”

“Not bad. I’ve got a lot of jobs due next week, but for now I’m free.” He wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying, though, and when Bucky glanced back at him, starting to smile, he smirked back. Bucky opened his apartment door and pulled Steve in, dropping his keys on the side table.

“Miss me?” Steve asked. Bucky laughed and kissed him. After a minute Steve started pushing Bucky back into his bedroom, kissing his neck gently.

“Eager?” Bucky asked. “Yeah, that’s it.” He unbuttoned Steve’s shirt as they went, and Steve tossed it off and pushed Bucky back onto the bed.

“Huh,” Bucky said, as Steve settled over him, his hands on Bucky’s biceps. “Look at you.” Bucky flexed as he attempted to flip them, which was distracting, but Steve still managed to stay on top of him. “Nice.”

Steve grinned down at him, and Bucky reached up slowly to pull Steve’s head down and kiss him. That, Steve decided, was totally fine.

They kissed for ages, until Bucky gently turned Steve over and shifted on top of him. “Hey,” Steve said, grinning up at him, and Bucky laughed and kissed him again, his mouth wet and open, and Steve let Bucky straddle him and take over. Bucky was hard, and starting to grind against Steve’s hips a little, as if he couldn’t help it, and that was hot, wow. Steve pressed up into it.

Bucky thrust back against him and kissed him hard, pushing his tongue in, and Steve sucked on it and caught his fingers in Bucky’s shirt and—Bucky sat up suddenly. Steve gasped as it changed Bucky’s position over his hips, but then he realized that Bucky looked ... out of it somehow. His head had tipped up and to the left, and his eyes had gone unfocused.

“You okay?” he asked, stroking Bucky’s sides.

“I—I just—” He shook his head, hard.

“Bucky?”

“Steve,” said Bucky, grabbing his shoulders and staring into his eyes. “ _Steve_.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve wiggled back enough to sit up and wrap his arms around him. “Bucky, what’s wrong?”

“I just realized I need to— _Steve_.”

“Realized what?” Steve asked. “Bucky, talk to me. What do you need?”

“Steve. I can’t—stay.”

“It’s okay,” said Steve, wondering if this was a panic attack. Bucky’s breathing sounded fine, though. “Bucky, it’s going to be okay.” He stroked his hands down Bucky’s back. All his muscles were tense. “Whoa, okay, take a breath—”

Bucky jumped off him, and the bed, backing up against the wall. Steve followed him automatically, but made himself stay a few feet away, trying not to crowd Bucky even as he wanted to hold him and touch him until he calmed. “Bucky,” he said. “Come on, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Bucky clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, his hands pressing against the wall behind him. “Are you in pain?” Steve asked, and he shook his head once.

Steve put one hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and when Bucky didn’t react badly he rubbed it gently. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “Take a breath. Relax your jaw, okay, now breathe in for me. And out.” It seemed to be doing something; some of the tension was draining out of Bucky. “Okay, just think about your breathing. In, and hold, and out. In—”

Bucky suddenly turned away and walked out of the room.

“ _Bucky_?”

Steve followed, more slowly, but Bucky didn’t even look at him. He strode to the apartment door, took his keys from the table beside it, and went out. Steve stared.

“Bucky?” he asked, as he heard the lock click. He ran to the door, then dashed back. Bucky didn’t have his phone, his wallet—he wasn’t even wearing _shoes_ , for God’s sake. Steve grabbed everything, put his own shoes on, ran back to the bedroom to throw on his shirt, and went out. He couldn’t hear Bucky in the stairwell, so he ran down.

He tried to shout as he opened the front door, but it came out as a gasp. His throat was closing up. No, dammit, he could have an asthma attack _later_. Bucky was _there_ , right in front of him, getting into a black van. As Steve stumbled out the van’s door closed behind him and it sped off. Steve tried to run after it and managed to see the license plate number, but there was no chance of him following it. He went to his knees on the sidewalk, wheezing, in an unbuttoned shirt with his arms full of Bucky’s stuff. He didn’t have his inhaler.

He wasn’t going to be able to calm down now, right after Bucky had disappeared like that, but he tried to breathe slowly and focused on the license plate number like a mantra. He just had to wait until he could breathe again, and then he’d get up and go back inside and call the police. He could do it. He stood up as soon as he felt at all capable, and coughed, bending over. But he could get back into the lobby, and he sat on the floor there until his lungs opened up again. He found a charcoal pencil in his pocket and scribbled the van’s license number on his arm.

When he could speak normally he called the police.


	8. She Uses a Machete to Cut Through Red Tape

The police told Steve to call back if Bucky was missing for longer than forty-eight hours and hung up. He stared at his phone in fury and stood up, planning to go back in and see if there was anything in Bucky’s apartment to explain what had happened.

The lobby with the mailboxes was separated from the rest of the building by a locking door, and Steve realized that he didn’t have the key. It was past midnight. Bucky had said the buzzers didn’t work. _Shit_.

He banged on the main door several times, hard, but no one came.

Eventually Steve pulled a flier out of the recycling bin under the mailboxes and wrote a note on the back.

_Bucky — I have your phone and wallet and shoes at my place. I hope you’re okay. Come tell me what’s going on._

Steve paused, staring at the paper, then drew a heart before writing his name because that was all he could do.

He folded the paper, wrote Bucky’s name on it, and slid it into his mailbox so the name stuck out. Then he went home, because there was nothing else he could do.

Sam was already in bed. Steve tried to sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes he saw the black van. It seemed more menacing every time he remembered it. Finally he got up and sat in the kitchen, with a glass of orange juice because he probably didn’t need coffee to ramp up his anxiety even if he really wanted it. He played stupid phone games, which didn’t stop him from trying to make sense of everything circling in the back of his mind.

“Jesus,” said Sam, when he came out of the bathroom that morning. “Have you been up all night? I thought you were at Bucky’s.”

“I was,” said Steve. “He—” Was he really going to say this? “He disappeared.” Sam looked baffled, and Steve explained.

“Have you tried calling him?”

“He doesn’t have his phone.” Steve held it up. “I called the police, but they blew me off.”

“Yeah, sorry man, they’re not going to be seriously worried about an adult disappearing, apparently by his choice.”

“But it was so weird, Sam—”

“I believe you. Damn. If there’s anything I can do—”

“Do you know anyone else I could call?” Steve asked, and then he got an idea himself.

“No, afraid not. Are you going to be okay? I should get ready for work.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

After Sam left for work Steve sat down on the couch and woke up six hours later. He blinked at his phone, not really believing he’d slept, but half sure that everything had been a dream. But there was Bucky’s stuff, on the coffee table, and there were no missed calls or texts on his phone.

He remembered the idea he’d had, talking to Sam. It wasn’t really wise, he thought, and it might not lead to anything, and he wasn’t even sure she could help, but if there was any possibility—

She picked up on the fourth ring, when he was beginning to worry she wouldn’t.

“Hey, Peggy?”

“Yes?”

“You know how I promised I’d never ask about your job?”

“Steve, I really can’t tell you.”

“I’m not asking you to, exactly, just—”

“Steve, please.”

“I’m really worried about a friend of mine,” Steve interrupted, wincing at himself. “You don’t have to tell me anything, and I wouldn’t ask normally, I wouldn’t ask if I was just worried about him, but—he just disappeared into a black van last night. I’m not being metaphorical or anything, an actual black van. I need to know if he’s okay. You don’t have to tell me how, but can you—can you look into it, somehow?”

There was a pause, and Steve checked to be sure Peggy hadn’t hung up on him. He wasn’t sure he didn’t deserve it. But after a moment she said, “Tell me about him.”

Steve gulped. And this might be a bit awkward. “He’s my boyfriend, actually. He’s Bucky—James Barnes. I told you about him, a bit.”

“James Barnes?”

“Yeah, I just usually call him Bucky. We were friends as kids.”

“Oh. Yes, you did mention him.” Yeah, definitely awkward. Steve forged ahead.

“I really had lost touch with him, starting when we were fourteen or so. I met him again six months ago—I just walked into the coffee shop he worked at. I thought he hadn’t changed much, and he didn’t actually tell me much about himself.” It kind of hurt, now that Steve let himself think about it. “I didn’t even realize he had a prosthetic arm until a week later.”

“A prosthetic arm.” Peggy sounded suddenly interested. “Which one?”

“His left. It’s much more high-tech than I would have expected; he’s not rich.” He felt kind of guilty talking about this, but come to think of it it was pretty weird, both that Bucky had it and that he didn’t like talking about it. If Bucky had had a bionic arm as a teenager he never would have shut up about it. But Steve had almost forgotten about it, except that he hadn’t been told what had happened.

“But it looks like a normal arm?”

“Yes. Moves like one too. I had no idea they could make ones that were so realistic. Not that I’m an expert.”

“You’re still living in Brooklyn, right?” Peggy asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Where are you right now?”

“In my apartment.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call you back. I will, I just need to be on a different line.”

When his phone rang again it didn’t even say _Unknown Number_ , just a blank. He accepted the call hesitantly. He’d always kind of suspected Peggy was a spy, but this was much more confirmation than he’d ever expected to get.

“Hello?”

“It’s Peggy again. Can you describe him?” Steve did. “Can you send me a photo?”

“Uh.” Bucky had said he hated having pictures taken, and Steve had agreed not to, but he thought he had a couple from before Bucky asked. And in a situation like this it was necessary, even if the violation of privacy upset him. “I think so. I’ll check after this call.”

“Thanks,” Peggy said. “His prosthetic arm. How far up is the injury?”

Steve thought, and then frowned. He’d pulled Bucky’s shirts up, he’d seen him take off layers, but Bucky’d always had at least a t-shirt on underneath. He’d barely noticed. If he had he’d thought it was just Bucky being self-conscious about the injury. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him shirtless, and he sleeps with it attached.”

“Oh. I thought—oh.”

Steve was really glad Peggy couldn’t see him blushing. But really, this was getting personal and unrelated to the issue at hand. “And he’s never told me how he lost the arm. Why?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you why yet. Tell me about his disappearance.”

Steve did, and at least Peggy seemed happy about the license plate number. “Look,” he said, “I know you don’t want me to ask what you do, but can you help?”

“Well,” said Peggy. “Well, Steve—your guesses about what I did were justified. That’s really all I can tell you.” 

“I mean, for Bucky.”

“I’ll do everything I can for him,” said Peggy. “This is rather a surprise to me, Steve.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I know it’s kind of, um, weird to ask you, and probably your bosses will object—”

“What? No, I meant what happened.”

“So you know something about it?”

“I might,” Peggy said, her voice cautious again. “I’ll go see what I can do, okay, Steve?”

“Thank you,” Steve said, feeling the familiar aching wish that he could be doing something himself. “Bye.” 

“Bye.”


	9. Give Me Something Real Enough

The next day, when Steve was trying to figure out how to make the police believe him when he called them again, Bucky rang Steve’s doorbell. “Oh thank God,” Steve said as he buzzed him in. “Come up, please come up.” When he opened the door for Bucky Steve looked him over to make sure there weren’t any obvious injuries and then threw his arms around him.

After the first relief he felt himself starting to get angry, but Bucky clutched him in the doorway, his face pressed against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve wasn’t going to make him let go. “Where did you go?” he asked. Bucky squeezed him tighter. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Bucky drew away a little, looking nervous. “There was a—an emergency,” he said.

“What? Here, come in, don’t stand in the doorway. Let me get you your stuff.” Bucky was wearing shoes now, and a jacket. He stepped in and hesitated until Steve came back with his phone and wallet and pulled him to the living room. “Where were you?” Steve asked again, sitting down.

“I can’t tell you,” said Bucky, and Steve stared at him in disbelief.

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?” Bucky looked away, twisting his hands. “Bucky, you had a panic attack and then you walked out without saying anything and went right into some van on the street. Where were you for the last two days? Who had—who was with you?”

“No one you need to worry about,” said Bucky, with a flirtatious smile.

“ _What_? Bucky, I thought you were being _abducted_ or something.”

“No,” said Bucky. “No. Steve, I just—went out. By myself. I should have said something, sorry. I really am sorry. But you don’t need to worry about it. There was no one else there.”

“Bucky, I _saw_ the van!”

Bucky shook his head. “No. You can’t—you can’t—nothing happened. Steve, nothing happened—”

“Then where have you _been_ for the last two days?” Bucky shook his head again. “Are you in the fucking mafia or something?”

“Steve, that’s ridiculous.”

“Don’t you call me ridiculous! I was seriously worried, and now you have no explanation for what happened. You’re acting like that wasn’t weird at all.”

“I’m really sorry,” said Bucky.

“Then just tell me what happened.”

“I went out.”

Steve waited.

“Seriously?” he asked, when Bucky just looked at him.

“Steve, I can’t. That’s all—I can’t.”

“What the _hell_? Bucky, just tell me.”

“I can’t re—I’m sorry.”

“What the hell is going on?” Steve asked, standing up and then stopping himself from crossing the room, because he wanted to shake Bucky and that wouldn’t be any use. Bucky just shook his head again.

“Look, I don’t understand this, Bucky. I need some kind of explanation.”

“I can’t—I can’t.”

“Okay,” said Steve, closing his eyes. “Okay, can you leave, then?”

“Yeah.” Bucky got up. “Thanks for keeping my stuff.”

“Bucky...”

Steve followed Bucky to the door. “Just tell me,” he said, reaching for Bucky’s left arm. Bucky jerked it away from his hand.

“There’s nothing to tell you,” Bucky said. “Nothing happened.”

“Fine. Bye.”

Steve leaned against the closed door and tried to come up with some explanation, but all he could manage was _What the fuck?_

He texted Peggy to say that Bucky had come back. She didn’t reply immediately. When Sam came in from his shift Steve had moved to the couch, but he hadn’t really done anything else in the intervening hours.

“Dude, you okay?” Sam asked.

“Fine.”

There was a pause. Steve glanced up. “I’m making brownies,” Sam said. “Want to order out for dinner?”

“Can’t afford it,” Steve said automatically. “Oh _shit_ , I’ve got those fucking illustrations due tomorrow night.”

“Can you tell them there’s a family emergency?” Sam asked, setting down chocolate and butter on the kitchen counter.

“What?”

“Your boyfriend disappearing is absolutely a family emergency, man.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “Fuck. He came back.”

“So,” said Sam slowly, “should they be celebration brownies?”

“He wouldn’t tell me where he went,” said Steve. “He wouldn’t say _anything_. Just that I didn’t need to worry about it, and he was sorry. And that was it.”

“Seriously?”

“He just kept saying ‘I can’t tell you’ the whole fucking time.”

“What the hell?” said Sam sympathetically.

“I just—eventually I just told him to leave. Fuck, I wanted to shake it out of him.” Steve rubbed his face. “I can’t believe this. I mean, I honestly can’t believe this happened, it makes no sense. He told me there hadn’t been anyone else there, too. It was insane.”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” Sam agreed. He turned the stove on under the double boiler. “And unless you say no right now, I’m ordering Thai for both of us.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Steve. Take it and deal.”

“Yeah, okay, thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“I should go work on those illustrations before dinner, I guess.”

“Probably a good idea.”

Over dinner, with a pan of brownies cooling on the stove, Steve found himself ranting. “It’s just so weird, and I’m worried about him, and he doesn’t seem to—he’s just shutting me out entirely.”

Sam made sympathetic noises, and got Steve brownies when he was finished his tom yum soup. Steve looked at the plate and suddenly had to grab hold of the table and focus. “Dammit,” he said when he had his voice under control, pushing his hair back. “Dammit, this was good, you know? It was good.”

“Yeah,” said Sam, patting his shoulder. “I know. Is it over, then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Probably. Fuck.”

“Yeah,” said Sam, looking way too understanding.

“Yeah,” Steve rasped. “I’m gonna eat these in my room, okay?”


	10. Sleep in Our Clothes and Wait for Winter to Leave

But Steve didn’t actually want to never see Bucky again. He called Bucky the next day, and agreed to meet him for coffee, and hoped.

Bucky met him at the café, but fidgeted next to his table, holding his drink and not sitting down. “Can we talk about this outside?” he asked, and Steve agreed and stood up, walked out with a foot of space between them and thought about how far it was to Coffey Park.

Steve was finished his coffee by the time they’d got there, and he threw out the cup and then immediately wished he’d kept it just to have something to do with his hands. He sat down on a bench and, after a moment, so did Bucky.

“So what happened?” Steve asked. Bucky opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

“I,” he said eventually. “I went out. I had to go.”

“Go where?” Steve kept his tone gentle. And again, Bucky opened his mouth, shut it again, gasped a little like he had just before whatever had happened that night. “It’s okay, just breathe. I just want to know if you were okay.”

“I was,” Bucky gasped again, “fine.”

Steve tried really hard to keep himself calm. “So where were you?”

Bucky shook his head. For fuck’s sake, Steve thought.

“What were you doing?” he tried. When that didn’t work, he asked. “Why did you need to go?”

“I had to go.” There was almost no emotion in his voice or his face, and Steve let out a frustrated breath and stared up at him.

“Look, I didn’t _want_ to kick you out, okay? I don’t want to—I was really worried about you. I want you to be okay. Can’t you just tell me?”

“I—don’t remember.”

Steve blinked at him. “You actually don’t remember? Because you could have just told me that.”

“I really ... don’t.” Bucky didn’t look like he was making shit up; he looked terrified now instead of blank. “I don’t know what happened, Steve. I just ... went out.”

“What _do_ you remember?”

Bucky shook his head. “I remember you talking to me. And wanting to stay with you. And then I went out. And then I was in front of my apartment building yesterday morning.”

“Nothing else?” Bucky shook his head. “Do you want to see a doctor, then?”

“ _NO!_ ” Steve jumped. “I’m sorry. No doctors.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Okay, you don’t need to shout at me.” He leaned against the bench. “Because, a concussion would explain some of it. What did you think you were doing, when you left? Or did you just panic?”

“I needed to go,” Bucky said. “That’s all.”

“And you don’t remember who was in the van?”

“There was no van.”

“ _Bucky_ —”

“No one else was there. Nothing happened.”

“If you don’t remember it, you can’t know that.”

“ _Nothing_ happened.”

“Bucky, I’m _worried_ about you.” Steve shook his head. “Fuck. Look, are you okay now?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“And you definitely don’t want a doctor to—”

“ _No_.”

“But you don’t remember anything? Like why you thought you needed to leave?”

“There’s nothing to remember.”

“Bucky, you were gone for almost two days!”

“Nothing happened, Steve.”

“Okay.” Steve sighed. “Okay, I won’t ask. And I’m not going to force you to see a doctor if you really don’t want to. But I need to be able to trust someone if I’m going to—be with them.” Dammit, this hurt to say. He _wanted_ to trust Bucky. “I can’t be in a relationship with you if you’re just going to disappear without telling me anything.”

Bucky stared at him. “I—I can’t—I won’t—” Steve waited, but he didn’t finish.

“So. I’ll see you around.”

“Wait,” said Bucky, and Steve stayed, hoping. “You will see me? We’re still friends?”

“I guess,” said Steve. His throat hurt and he just wanted to yell at someone. “All right. I need to go. Bye.”

Bucky looked devastated, but Steve couldn’t deal with that right now. Or ever. That wasn’t his responsibility anymore.

He went home, and lay on the couch watching _Parks and Recreation_ until Sam came home from work. Peggy had texted asking him if Bucky had told him where he’d gone, and Steve stared at the message and then replied, _No, and it’s not actually my business anymore. Sorry for bothering you._ He’d have to explain more sometime, but that could wait, and she should know she could stop using her time on this. He'd call her and tell her they'd broken up tomorrow.

Steve wasn’t really expecting to stay friends with Bucky, and when he thought about that it hurt even more. But after two weeks Bucky texted, _Call me if you want to go for coffee sometime._ And Steve didn’t, for a while, until Sam was at a conference and Steve wanted to rant to someone about a client.

_We could have coffee if you’re okay with me complaining about work the whole time_ , he sent, trying not to scroll up to the other texts from when they were together.

_Sure._

And to his surprise, it went okay, the conversation flowed smoothly, and after that they kind of were friends still. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise—he had experience being friends with his exes, or at least with Peggy, and he’d been pretty upset with Peggy around the breakup. And Bucky was at least in the same city.


	11. She’s Got Blood in Her Eyes for You

“Carter.”

“Peggy, there’s a briefing in five minutes. You’ll want to be there.”

“Will I?”

“Winter’s been spotted.”

“Recently?”

“Today. See you in my office.”

“Maria, thank you.”

***

“Hello?”

“Steve, it’s Peggy. Do you know where Bucky is at the moment?”

“Uh, no, haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday. Um, I know I told you that we’re not actually dating anymore—”

“Could you check on him for me, please?”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

***

“Hello?”

“Peggy, he isn’t answering his phone, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t working today. Do you think something’s—”

“I don’t think anything. When and where did you last see or contact him?”

“Seven pm at my place on Wednesday. And he would have been at work yesterday.”

“Where does he work?”

“Di Treviso on Clark Street. Is he in danger?”

“I’ll tell you if I find out anything about him. Thank you, Steve.”

“Peggy—”

***

“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. The number you have dialled is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, please hang up, or press pound for more options.”

“Peggy, call me back and tell me what’s going on right now.”

***

“Di Treviso Fine Dining, how can I help you?”

“Hello, this is Agent Carter of SHIELD. I’m calling about one of your employees.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Does a James Barnes work for you?”

“Yeah. What’s he done?”

“Nothing, so far as we know. Was he at work yesterday?”

“Yeah, he was.”

“When did he leave?”

“Uh, one sec. Joey, can you check the time sheet for when James left yesterday? ... Four thirty.”

“Thank you.”

***

“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. The number you have dialled is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, please hang up, or press pound for more options.”

“Peggy, I mean it. Call me back now.”

***

“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. The number you have dialled is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, please hang up, or press pound for more options.”

“Peggy, what the hell is going on?”

***

“Hello?”

“Hi Peggy. So, Bucky called me back today. He says his phone charger stopped working.”

“Oh, did it? When did he call, just now?”

“Yeah. I still want an explanation for what you thought was going on.”

“Well, I’m afraid someone of his description was seen in a hostage situation.”

“Oh God. It wasn’t him, though?”

“Not if he was in New York. But the description was close enough that I worried.”

“Okay. Yeah, thank you for checking. I wish you’d told me before, though.”

“I couldn’t, Steve—technically I shouldn’t be telling you now. But I wanted to be able to let you know quickly if anything happened.”

“Thanks. So, apart from that, how’s work?”

“Oh, don’t even ask. Have any interesting commissions lately?”

***

“Hello?”

“Hi Steve! I’m going to be in New York next weekend, want to meet up?”

“Sure. Is it for work? Because if your employer’s not paying for a hotel you could crash on our couch.”

“That would be lovely, actually.”

“Compared to a five star hotel?”

“A very lonely five star hotel. Anyway, it’s not for work. My friend Colleen—you remember Colleen, my roommate in university—her husband just left her and I want to, you know, I think she could use a friend.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that. Okay, so text me your flight details and I’ll expect you.”

“Thanks so much! See you Friday.”


	12. Oh Lord I Ain’t Coming Home With You

Peggy showed up at nine pm on Friday, apologizing as they hugged for being so late. “I went to see Colleen first, and she’s doing all right, she’s staying with another friend right now. Can I just leave my bag in here?”

“Yeah, sit down, want a drink?” He’d put pillows and a couple folded blankets on the couch earlier, and he ducked into the kitchen to get her a snack. “You’ll be free Saturday night?”

“Yes, Colleen’s going to be having dinner with her mother.”

“Okay. You said you wanted to meet Bucky—”

“Oh yes.”

“Okay, he’s going to be here around seven. Sam’ll want to invite Natasha over too, probably, but you know Natasha, right?” Apparently they’d met when Natasha was visiting DC with some ambassador or other, like she did once a month or so. Steve had never actually seen them together, but he just told himself that they definitely had more interesting things to talk about than him and tried not to worry about it.

“Yes, that’s fine. I’m going to be seeing Colleen in the afternoon, but I should be back by then.”

“Great! So tell me about life.”

***

Peggy went running with Sam the next morning, and Sam came in gasping and shaking his head at her. “Your friends, Steve,” he said. “Damn.”

Peggy laughed and stretched her arms over her head. “Do you have any tea?”

Steve dug out a box Sam had bought for Natasha at some point. Sam grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge as the Keurig worked on his coffee. “Seriously, though,” Sam asked, “what do you even do for the government?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“That line stopped being funny in the nineties.”

“Can you make tea with a Keurig?” asked Steve. Peggy groaned.

Peggy went out to see Colleen at lunchtime, and Steve got into a political argument on Twitter and then made himself stop and paint until dinner, and right after dinner Bucky called up.

“Hey,” said Steve when he opened the door. “Come in. Peggy actually stepped out to see a friend, but she’ll be back soon.”

Bucky came in, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder and smiling as he did, and Steve tried not to let his face show how he still reacted to Bucky’s touch. It had been two months since they broke up. And he had had very good reason. And dammit, Bucky was how he’d figured out he was bi and he’d never expected to actually be with him and he still wanted him.

Natasha showed up right afterwards, though, so he could think about something else, like Sam’s complete and utter failures at flirting with her. Bucky sat down on the couch and asked how Steve’s art was going.

Natasha was checking her phone when Steve buzzed Peggy in. A minute later Peggy knocked and Steve went over to open the door.

“Hi Steve,” Peggy said. Steve stepped back to let her in and turned to the living room.

Bucky had stood up. Steve caught a glimpse of fear on his face, and then Natasha tackled him and he threw her across the room into the TV. As Steve stared Peggy shoved past him into the living room.

Bucky punched out the window glass. “What the _hell_?” Sam demanded. Bucky ignored him, put his left hand on the sill as if to vault out, and then stopped and staggered away.

Peggy grabbed Bucky’s shoulders. He shoved at her. Natasha reached out from where she lay on the floor and tripped him, and Peggy pulled him down. Natasha said, “Tranq’s not working, Hawkeye!” and flung herself across Bucky’s legs.

“What the fuck are you doing to Bucky?” Steve yelled as something flew through the smashed window. He ran across and pulled on Natasha’s shoulders, which had no effect whatsoever.

“Grab his arm!” Peggy shouted. She was sprawled across Bucky’s chest, holding his arms down with her entire body, but his left arm, the artificial one, was fighting out from the grip of her thighs. Steve still wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming. Bucky was slowing but still fighting them, and seriously, what had just happened?

“Hawkeye, try another one,” Natasha said as Steve tried to pull her off Bucky, and this time Steve saw the tranquilizer dart as it flew through the window into Bucky’s neck, somehow missing Peggy. The women held on, and soon Bucky slumped. “Got him.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Sam.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Steve,” said Peggy, slowly standing up, “your friend’s an assassin.”


	13. Our Common Goal

Natasha and Peggy zip-tied Bucky’s wrists and ankles, then Peggy straightened and dusted off her trousers. “I must say,” she said to Steve and Sam, “you two weren’t much help.”

“You just assaulted my best friend since grade school in our living room! Why would we _help_?”

“I’m calling the police,” said Sam, getting out his phone. Natasha grabbed it out of his hand and slapped a leather wallet in its place. “What the hell?” Sam opened it. “Oh, what the _hell_.”

“We can’t explain here,” Natasha told Steve. To Peggy she added, “I’ll call it in, and then we need to secure him ASAP.”

“What do you mean, _secure_ him?” Natasha ignored Steve and stepped into the hall with her phone.

“Steve,” said Peggy, “I know this is a shock—”

“A _shock_? You just tackled and knocked out my best friend, and now you’re telling me that he’s an assassin, that you’ve been lying to me, that Natasha apparently works for the same shadowy government organization you do—”

“What is my _life_?” Sam muttered. “You knew about SHIELD?”

“—that you’re going to just take him away and probably make him disappear—” Steve tried to collect himself. “If you think I’m letting Bucky go anywhere with you you’re damned wrong.”

“Hill says we can bring them with us,” Natasha said, coming back into the living room. “ETA one minute.”

Peggy glanced at her. “Really.”

“They’re a security risk either way. This way we have a chance of convincing them to stay quiet.”

“I suppose so.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Peggy went to open it. “So you knew your ex worked for SHIELD?” Sam asked Steve.

“For who?” Steve asked, but he was distracted by the man Peggy had let in.

He was a muscular blond man in body armour with a bow and quiver strapped to his back, of all things. He joined Natasha beside Bucky, saying, “Let’s get this show on the road,” and Steve hurried to intercept them.

“He’s not going anywhere!”

Peggy sighed. “Steve,” she said, “we’re taking him to a medical facility. You can come with us. You can see that we won’t be harming him.”

“You all have ID?” Sam asked. Peggy waved the new guy over and showed Sam theirs.

“Okay, Steve,” he said, “they’re from SHIELD. It’s an international espionage organization, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. They can actually do this. I’d recommend that you go with them and keep an eye on things if you’ve got to, because they’re just going to do whatever the hell they want anyway, and that’s the best offer you’re going to get.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’ll come with if you want, but calling the police isn’t going to do shit.”

“You’ve heard of us,” said the stranger, smirking.

“Damn right I have.”

“All right,” said Peggy. “Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, this is Agent Clint Barton. If we’re all ready to go, now?”

Steve grabbed his keys and wallet and checked he had his phone, and Barton and Natasha picked up Bucky, who was still unconscious. Steve followed them out the door, wondering what his neighbours would think if they saw the parade. The silence in the crowded elevator was extremely awkward.

“Great,” said Steve as they left the building. “Another black van.” Barton and Natasha manoeuvred Bucky into the back, and then Natasha climbed in next to him and Barton went to the driver’s side door. Peggy held a door open, and Steve reluctantly got in.

There was silence for the first few minutes of driving. Peggy spent them frowning thoughtfully at Sam, until he finally asked, “What?”

“Sam Wilson,” she said. “Ah. EXO-7.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “That’s classified,” he said.

Steve really really wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut. “Of course,” said Peggy. “But my boss might like to speak with you.”

“No,” said Sam. “No, I’m done. Unless Superman or Captain America himself shows up to recruit me, I’m out. I’ve got my own life.”

“As you like.”

Sam glanced at Steve, who was still determinedly holding back his questions. “EXO-7 was a pararescue tool,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Right.” He assumed Sam meant that _he_ , at least, hadn’t been lying to Steve about his life, and it was a bit of a relief, but it was also a reminder that literally everyone in the van had been keeping secrets from him.

“So you didn’t actually tell me what evidence you had for any of this,” he said.

“I knew James, before,” said Peggy. “He was a SHIELD agent. We thought he’d died on a mission.”

“ _What_?”

“I can’t tell you anything else without my boss’s permission,” she said. “I didn’t know that he was your friend. But I recognize him from SHIELD, and I’ve been studying his work recently.”

“Peggy’s been obsessed with him for the past two months,” said Barton.

“You’ve been hunting him down,” said Steve. “Without telling me. While lying to me, in fact.”

“Steve, I didn’t know anything for certain—”

“And now you think he’s an assassin for some reason, that he, I don’t know, just suddenly decided to start killing people in between restaurant work—”

“I _don’t_ think that.”

“ _Really_?”

“I think someone’s in his head. Either he’s been brainwashed or ... something else. Steve, it was very important to me that he be captured, not killed. SHIELD can do tests, can probably reverse whatever has been done to him. You said yourself that he’s had blackouts, that he’s disappeared. He may honestly not know what he’s done most of the time. We can help. I hope.”

“And what if it turns out you’re completely wrong and he’s got a brain tumour or something?”

“Then we’ll refer him to a civilian specialist. And at least you’ll know.”

“I’d have liked to know a lot sooner.”

“We couldn’t take the risk that you’d warn him.”

“For fuck’s sake,” said Steve, although he probably would have.

The van stopped in a dim parking garage. Steve and Sam were hurried out, but Steve planted his feet and watched as Natasha and a groups of medics—at least, Steve hoped they were medics—got Bucky out of the back and onto a gurney. Which they then handcuffed him to. “You can’t—”

“Steve,” said Peggy, “we don’t know if he’ll be in his right mind when he wakes up. We don’t know when he’ll wake up. Come inside.”

“Fuck this, _no_ ,” Steve said. “I’m going with him.”

“Steve,” said Natasha.

“No. I won’t do anything stupid, and if no one hurts him I’ll just sit and watch, but I’m going with him, I’m not letting him disappear.”

“ _Steve_.”

Peggy and Natasha looked at Sam, who shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

“Yes, all right,” said Peggy, and Steve was a bit surprised that it was that easy. Possibly these people did actually have Bucky’s best interests at heart.

So he and Sam (“No point in separating you two, I suppose.”) and Natasha followed Bucky’s stretcher while Peggy and Barton went through another door to report to their boss.


	14. In the Darkest Part of You That You Have Ever Seen

It did, in fact, look like a medical facility, although with fewer people sitting around waiting than most of the hospitals Steve had been to. There were nurses in scrubs hurrying through the halls, there were a few patients, mostly very muscular ones, and it was all pretty familiar, given the amount of time Steve had spent in hospitals when he was younger.

Bucky ended up on a bed in some kind of observation room, with Steve firmly outside it. The silicone cover had been taken off his arm, revealing shining metal plates, some of which had been removed so technicians could examine the workings. He was surrounded by machines, some of which Steve recognized and some of which were completely foreign.

Sam was sitting beside Steve; Natasha was texting a little ways away. After about an hour her phone rang; she answered it as Steve tried to remember whether it was still a problem to use phones in hospitals. “Our boss would like to see you now,” she said to Steve.

“Then he can come down here,” Steve said.

“She, actually,” said Natasha calmly. “She wants to explain what we know of Bucky’s history.”

Steve glanced through the window. “They need to do a CT scan,” Natasha said. “You won’t be able to watch him for that anyway.”

“Better to have more of an idea of what’s going on,” Sam said.

Steve frowned, but he did want an explanation. And this did seem to be an actual medical facility. “Yeah, okay.”

Natasha took them to an elevator. At the top she led them out, through a maze of corridors that Steve suspected was entirely for show, and then into a spacious office. Peggy was already there, with a dark haired, surprisingly young woman. As Peggy introduced them she came around her desk to shake hands, which Steve did reluctantly.

“I’m Deputy Director Maria Hill of SHIELD,” she said. Steve scowled at her.

“Are you planning on actually telling us anything, or just bullshitting us?”

“In fact, on Agent Carter’s recommendation, we are going to share as much information about the situation with you as we can. Sign this.” She handed him and Sam non-disclosure agreements.

Steve read the entire thing first, carefully. “What if you’ve been doing something horribly unethical and I need to tell the news?” he asked. “Or the ACLU?”

“Do you think Agent Barnes would want you to tell them?” Hill asked. Steve scowled. He wished he had a lawyer, but he also wanted answers now.

After a little more consideration he signed—the worst they could do was send him to prison. Hill took the contracts back and nodded to Peggy. “Agent Carter, please summarize your findings.”

Peggy straightened her back and started speaking. “James Barnes graduated magna cum laude with a BSME from Purdue University. He had already been recruited by SHIELD, initially as a technician, but his marksmanship abilities led to him becoming a field agent. Three years ago he was on a mission in Russia when we lost all contact with him. Eventually some of his equipment and—” she winced “—part of his left arm were recovered. He was assumed dead, though the rest of his remains were never found.”

“What.” Steve’s mind filled with the realization that he had had no idea about any of this, that Bucky could have _died_ and he would never have heard about it. That it really was complete and utter chance that they’d met again at all.

“A few months later we began getting reports of an assassin, working various jobs that seemed to have no connection at all. We couldn’t find any information on who he was, or who he worked for. All we knew was that he had a metal left arm, and once someone with him called him Winter.

“Two months ago Steve contacted me because he was concerned over the disappearance of his friend James Barnes. Steve, if you have anything to add, please do. I had known James Barnes slightly when he was a field agent, but I assumed the name was a coincidence. Steve’s description of his friend included a mention of an artificial left arm far beyond any commercially available prosthetic technology.

“The day that Steve told me Barnes had returned safely but would or could not explain his absence, SHIELD received another report of a Winter assassination. I took all the information I could find on Steve’s James Barnes, all the information we had on Winter, and also SHIELD’s personnel file on Agent Barnes, and started looking for correlations. This required significant investigations into Steve’s friend’s background, which revealed two and a half years of work in restaurants, never staying in one position for more than eight months. Before that, there was no information except what Steve had told me of their childhood, which matched that of SHIELD’s Agent Barnes. However, Steve had mentioned his friend had intended to study engineering.

“Once I had Barnes’ work history, I cross-referenced it with sightings of Winter. There were multiple occasions when an assassination would occur shortly before Barnes was fired due to missing work without notice. I found no instances where Winter was spotted at a time when I could definitively confirm that Barnes was elsewhere. However, I also found no evidence that he was contacting or being contacted by anyone to coordinate his movements. I could find very few surveillance images of James Barnes, and even fewer ordinary photos, but I recognized him as our former agent.”

Steve remembered looking through his phone for a photo to send to Peggy, and not finding one. He’d been sure he’d taken a couple before Bucky had asked him not to, but he’d assumed when he couldn’t find them that he’d deleted them and forgotten about it. Now he wondered, feeling sick, if _Bucky_ had deleted them from his phone sometime, and then he got angry at himself for wondering.

“The search on the license number Steve gave me eventually traced back to a company we believed to be a front for the neo-Nazi terrorist group Hydra. I have confirmed this association, and vans owned by them were frequently visible in Brooklyn at the relevant times. Though this level of organization is well beyond what we had assumed Hydra was capable of, I believe we have drastically underestimated their organization’s scope, and I have found links between them and the Russian mafia. A group I believe to be their New York office has been running international flights which also align with Winter’s movements. My theory is that Hydra kidnapped Barnes on his mission, and is using an unknown means to control his actions, using him for various jobs and then returning him to his normal life to avoid suspicion. His work in the restaurant industry, while far beneath his skills or education, allows him to easily find and leave jobs without standing out.

“Once I was this far, I waited for further news of Winter or Barnes. When we received a report of Winter in Morocco, for once before his operation had finished, I called Steve to confirm Barnes’ whereabouts. Barnes could not be reached by phone, and his workplace indicated that there was sufficient time since he was last seen for him to reach Morocco. Our agents were unsuccessful in apprehending Winter, and twenty-four hours after the assassin was last seen, James Barnes got back into contact with Steve.

“At this point I asked a selection of SHIELD agents, including both some who had known Agent Barnes and the three who had personally encountered Winter, to identify James Barnes from the available images. Results were uncertain, but Agent Romanov, who had also met Steve’s friend, agreed with me that the three were the same, and she and I planned today’s operation. Do you want me to explain that again?”

“No, thank you, Agent Carter. Mr. Rogers, do you have anything to add?”

It took Steve a moment to realize she meant him. He wanted to say a lot, but he was too shocked to actually articulate any of it, so he shook his head.

“The biometrics of the man currently in SHIELD Medical match those of Agent Barnes,” said Hill. “I’ve now received his CT scan results.” She turned her monitor around, showing a skull x-ray. “They indicate that there are two implants in Barnes’ brain, similar to those used for deep brain stimulation.” Steve could see them, long probes extending from flat anchors outside Bucky’s skull, and felt nauseous. “Barnes has no known history of any medical condition which would require such implants, and emergency surgery will remove them at once. We’ll see if this has any effect on his memory, and if Barnes can corroborate your theory then, Agent Carter. Good work.”

Steve found his voice. “So what are you going to do about this?”

“Agent Barnes is now under SHIELD protection,” said Hill. “We will need to hear his report of the circumstances of his work for Hydra. However, if he assists us with dismantling their organization, as we plan to do as soon as possible now that Agent Carter has uncovered so much information on them, we will not press charges and will defend him against any efforts to do so. We are watching all known Hydra bases. There are also currently strike teams watching both your and his apartments, in case there is an attempt to recover him.”

“So it’s not even safe for us to go home?”

“We doubt your apartment will be attacked. If they were watching him closely enough to know that that was where he was captured they would have shown themselves there by now. However, a security detail will remain there until the risk is gone.”

“And when will _that_ be?”

“Very soon,” said Hill. “You understand that I can’t share details of ongoing operations, but we are planning to take down Hydra as soon as possible, before they can realize the implications of the loss of their operative. You will be informed of all relevant developments.”

“Hmm,” said Steve. But they had provided a lot more information than he would have expected about Bucky, even if they wouldn’t tell him about anything else. “And what happens to Bucky now?”

“That’s up to him to decide, once he has recovered from the surgery. If that’s all?”

“Yeah,” Steve admitted. Hill nodded at Peggy, who showed them out of the office.

“Okay,” said Sam, outside the door. “I’m going home. I seriously recommend you come with.”

Steve shook his head. He was thinking of the way Bucky had hugged him the first time, in the coffee shop, had held onto him, had given him his phone number immediately, called him and kept calling him. _You will see me? We’re still friends?_ He’d been asking for help, Steve realized, without ever being able to actually ask for it.

“You sure?”

“Huh?”

Sam waved a hand in front of his eyes. “You sure?”

“I’m staying with Bucky.”

Sam sighed. “Okay, man. Call me if you need anything.”

“I’ll walk you down,” said Peggy.


	15. All of the Things I Should Have Known About You

Peggy took them to the elevators. It was already dark outside the windows. “Do you want a ride home?” she asked Sam as they stepped in—the elevator had arrived astonishingly quickly.

“Sure, if it’s on offer,” he said, and she pressed a couple buttons and then texted someone. Sam got out on the main level with instructions on how to get a ride, and Peggy and Steve kept going to the Medical level.

They walked in silence to the waiting room nearest to Bucky. Less than a minute after they sat down a doctor appeared and said, “Agent Carter?”

Peggy waved Steve with her as she stood. “You have the preliminary report of Barnes’ condition?” she asked, walking over, and when he heard that Steve followed quickly. The doctor nodded. “This is Steve Rogers. Deputy Director Hill has authorized him to be informed of Barnes’ condition as far as it does not touch on other classified cases. We already know about the neural implants.”

“All right. In that case.” The doctor flipped a page in her clipboard. “Agent Barnes is currently undergoing emergency surgery to remove the implants,” she said. “We have also found, and will remove, two subcutaneous tracking devices.”

“The surgery,” Steve asked, “is it dangerous?”

“No. We can’t tell whether the implants will cause lingering effects after their removal, but the removal itself shouldn’t do any harm. Analysis of them will hopefully provide information on Hydra’s methods. We will also remove the prosthetic arm, in order to determine whether it is also an instrument of control, but that may be delayed. We already know that its neural attachments and feedback are ... highly advanced, and we’ll need to call in—” she glanced at Steve, though mostly she’d been ignoring him and talking to Peggy “—consultant specialists to analyze it. Do you want the specifics on it so far?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the technical knowledge to understand them. How is his general health?”

“Much better than we would have expected. His reactions to medications are also unpredictable, in ways that indicate—” she glanced at Steve again “—enhancement. We’re analyzing blood samples to determine exactly how it was done. We have kept him under sedation, but will allow him to recover naturally after the surgery. As far as we can tell under these conditions, he has no health issues other than the amputation, and all injuries sustained today have already healed.”

Steve hadn’t understood all of the doctor’s allusions, but that surprised him. “Could I have a copy of his file?” he asked. The doctor hesitated.

“Unfortunately it is impossible to give a full picture of his status without revealing classified information.” Peggy put her hand on Steve’s arm before he could say anything, but he pulled away. “I can get you a redacted report in a few hours.”

“Thank you,” said Peggy.

“We will inform you of Agent Barnes’ progress. For now,” the doctor said, to Steve specifically, “I would suggest that you go home and get some sleep.”

Steve was already shaking his head. Peggy sighed. “The cafeteria is down that hall, follow the signs,” she said. “Is there somewhere here he can sleep?” The doctor suggested a private room.

“I’ll wait until he’s out of surgery,” Steve said, and Peggy sighed again.

The doctor went back out, and Peggy took Steve’s hand before he could follow her and turned him around. “Come sit down.”

He pulled away from Peggy’s hand, but he took a seat, and Peggy came and sat next to him. He didn’t turn to look at her.

“I wish there’d been another way,” she said.

“That’s not an apology.”

“Everything’s so ... simple, for you,” Peggy said after a pause. “My life isn’t simple.”

“So I’m too dumb to understand, that’s it?”

“No!” Peggy sounded surprised, and that deflated Steve’s anger a little. “No, not at all. Steve, you look at a situation and it ... stops being complicated. You know what to do, and you do it. I wish it worked like that for me.”

“Usually people won’t let me do it,” Steve muttered bitterly. Peggy sighed.

“I know. But if I hadn’t let you come here with James, what would you have done?”

“I’d have gone and found him.”

“Of course you would have.” He could hear her smile.

“That’s why you never told me anything about your work, isn’t it?”

“Well, that and the Espionage Act.” Steve shrugged, and Peggy sighed again. “I knew you’d get fed up with it eventually. I just wanted you enough to try it anyway.”

Steve rubbed his eyes and remembered that miserable year in DC. “I couldn’t do that. Even if I knew what you were doing, if I couldn’t help...” And he _couldn’t_ help, that was what was infuriating.

“I know.” They sat in more silence for a while. “I’m not going to apologize for taking James in. Once I knew what was going on I had to stop it, and it was my duty to take him to SHIELD. But I really am sorry that I couldn’t tell you. I’ve always wished that I could talk to you about all of this.”

“But you can’t.”

“But I can’t.”

Steve didn’t think he could handle much more of that subject. “What happens now, for Bucky?”

“SHIELD will give him recovery time and resources. He will be expected to cooperate in the investigation, but it is unlikely that he will be officially linked with it or expected to take an active role.”

“And after he’s recovered?”

Peggy was nice enough not to point out that they didn’t know how much he would recover. “That depends on what he wants. They probably won’t accept him back as a field agent. He might want another job within the organization—he does have the skills for it. If not, it’s up to him what he does.” She paused. “Recovery will take time, though.”

“Yeah, I—Yeah.”

Peggy sighed. “I have to go write my report. Do try and get some sleep.”

She stood, and Steve stood too. “Peggy ... thanks for getting him out.”

Peggy rested her hand on his shoulder. “Anytime.”


	16. You Were Like a Phone Booth

To Steve’s surprise, Bucky woke up the next day.

Steve had gotten a few hours of sleep sitting up that night, and then gone back to watching and worrying. Around nine am a nurse had put a chair in Bucky’s room for him. Bucky looked vulnerable, pale and asleep and covered with bandages. His left arm, with the metal and some of the inner workings exposed, was secured to the bed with a terrifyingly heavy-duty shackle, and didn’t look like a part of him but like another restraint. Or a torture device.

Steve had been wondering if they were still sedating Bucky, but it seemed they weren’t. Bucky twitched and jerked just before he woke up, but when his eyes opened he didn’t seem distressed, and he hadn’t actually fought the restraints. Steve leaned forward to make sure he was in Bucky’s field of view.

“Steve?” he said, and Steve was so glad he’d stayed.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

Bucky blinked, and then his eyes widened. “Everything,” he said, his voice rough. “Steve, I have to get out—you’re not safe, I’m not safe, this _hospital_ isn’t safe—”

“You’re not in a hospital,” Steve said, and as he’d hoped that made Bucky pause.

“Then where the hell am I?” he asked, looking around the very hospital-like room.

“Okay,” said Steve, “first, I want you to know that I had no idea this was going to happen. But it turns out Peggy works for SHIELD, which is—”

“I know,” Bucky said. “I know, I remember.” He shook his head, then looked around again. “We’re at SHIELD, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Bucky swallowed, and belatedly Steve offered him the cup of water that’d been resting on a table. Bucky looked at it a little dubiously, but drank it. “So,” he said when he was done, “what are they going to do to me?”

“Do to you?”

Bucky nodded. “I think I remember Peggy taking me down. They have me here, I’m not going anywhere—I know what I did. What are they going to do to me?”

“They’re not doing anything to you,” Steve said. “You can come home when you’ve recovered—”

“Steve, I know what I’ve been doing,” Bucky snapped.

“It wasn’t you.”

Bucky frowned. “I’d like to think it wasn’t,” he said. “I—it’s weird, the memories are weird, but they’re _there_ —”

“They—whoever had you—they put implants in your brain.”

Bucky’s hand moved, pulling at the cuff that held him to the bed. “In my _brain_?” He looked at the cuffs but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah. It was—I don’t know how, and it’s all really fucked up, but it was making you obey them and forget it afterwards. You can remember everything now because SHIELD took it out.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“They insisted that you had to be restrained.”

Bucky glanced at the cuffs again. “They were right.”

“No, they weren’t,” Steve said automatically. “Do you actually want to attack me now?”

“Well, no,” Bucky said. “But don’t tell me that you’re the one debriefing me.”

“No,” said Maria Hill, walking in with a doctor following her. “But we thought letting him wait here with you would make him less of a pain in our asses than he would be otherwise.”

“Of course he would,” said Bucky fondly.

“Now, though,” she said to Steve, “if you’re assured he’s safe—”

“He _just_ woke up,” Steve protested. “He hasn’t eaten, he hasn’t had a chance to—”

“All physical signs normal or better,” said the doctor, who had ignored them to go examine the machines and charts around the bed.

“Steve,” said Bucky, “it’s fine. Please go. You don’t need to hear this.”

Steve looked at his face, serious and grim and pleading, and nodded, and left.

But he clenched his fists as he walked out of the room, thinking about the look on Bucky’s face, the _please_ , Hill’s calm silence, as if none of this affected her—maybe it didn’t, and Bucky—Bucky—

Steve turned and punched the wall.

Ow, fuck, _ow_ —

The pain did something for his frustration and fury, mixing them with resignation, maybe.

“Oh, Steve.” Peggy’s voice. He hadn’t even noticed she was in the hallway. “Nurse!”

A black woman in scrubs came up to them. “What in God’s name have you done to that hand?”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, and because he was trying hard not to look at Peggy he caught an expression on the nurse’s face that was not so much disbelieving as I-don’t-have-time-for-your-bullshit. “All right, not fine.”

“I need to stay near here,” Peggy said apologetically, and the nurse took Steve off to get his hand looked at.


	17. ’Til It Bleeds Daylight

Steve and Sam’s apartment was still being monitored by SHIELD two weeks after Bucky had been released from their medical department, but there hadn’t actually been any approaches by Hydra and hopefully the government surveillance would be dropped soon.

Bucky’s apartment, on the other hand...

Well, it turned out that the reason Bucky had been able to afford his own apartment was because Hydra had been paying for it.

“Only way to afford an apartment in Brooklyn these days,” Bucky said dryly. “Co-sign with an evil international terrorist group.”

The SHIELD safehouse Bucky had been given was surprisingly close to Steve’s apartment, and he didn’t know if someone had deliberately arranged that but it was convenient. SHIELD had removed Bucky’s prosthesis, and Steve had a lot of free time while his hand was in a splint, so he’d been coming by daily to check on him and help with chores.

(”You don’t have to,” Bucky had said before he left SHIELD Medical.

“Well, I’m going to,” Steve had answered, “unless you don’t want me to.”

“All right then,” Bucky had said, with something that might have been a smile.)

“Thanks,” Bucky said, taking a bag of groceries from Steve. Steve put the remaining two bags on the counter, pulled out a carton of eggs, and turned around to find Bucky right in front of him.

“Uh.”

“Hey,” said Bucky, and then he leaned in and kissed Steve. Steve tried not to look shocked.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” Bucky said, and he did look really earnest. “You think I was joking about—” He waved a hand. “All of that? For months?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “I mean, you were asking for help—”

Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve. “I was asking for _you_ ,” he said.

“But I couldn’t get you out.” It hurt, still, that he hadn’t realized, that he hadn’t done anything, really, except call Peggy. Steve backed away a little, so Bucky could see his face, and Bucky gave him space immediately.

“But you _did_ ,” Bucky said. “You called SHIELD in.”

Steve put the eggs down and rubbed his eyes. “I—I don’t even _like_ SHIELD.” He suddenly tensed. “And I can’t—can’t deal with you keeping secrets from me—like I said before—even if SHIELD says you can’t tell me—”

“Fuck what SHIELD thinks I should be telling you.”

Steve almost laughed, then asked, “Why didn’t you want me there with Hill?”

“Huh? Oh, when they were debriefing me?” Bucky’s shoulders went up. “Steve. That wasn’t about confidentiality. That—What they did to me—You shouldn’t have to hear that. I—” Steve hugged Bucky without thinking about it, and Bucky’s head dropped. “Steve,” he said.

“Okay,” Steve said, and Bucky’s arm came around his back. “Okay.”

“I just need you here,” Bucky murmured.

“Anything I can do,” Steve said. “Now that I can do something.”

Maybe he sounded more self-deprecating than he intended. “You’re—” Bucky shook his head. “Steve, I think I remember your mom telling you a lot that not all problems can be solved by punching people?”

“Yeah?”

“This is one of those problems. And you’re, um. You can. It turns out you’re pretty good at it.”

“Unlike punching people,” Steve said automatically, rubbing his splint, as he tried to process that.

“Hey, I’m sure I taught you how to punch properly. Anyway, let’s go watch Game of Thrones.”

“Ugh,” said Steve, but he went anyway. Bucky pulled him close on the couch and Steve cuddled into his arm, glanced at the shit happening on screen, and then took out his phone. Bucky laughed at him, and Steve smiled at Angry Birds and pressed closer against Bucky.

***

Steve let himself in on the day of Bucky’s post-surgery followup appointment to find Bucky on the couch, reading, or at least looking at his phone. “SHIELD’s sending a car?” he asked, joining him.

“Yeah.”

“You have everything? Paperwork they want? You know what you want to tell them about symptoms?”

“Yeah.” Bucky leaned against Steve’s shoulder, then pulled back. Steve reached out carefully and pulled him in again. This time he stayed lying against Steve until the SHIELD driver rang up.

At SHIELD Medical Steve got pulled away to have the splint taken off his right hand and came back to find Bucky leaning back in a chair, talking to the blond agent who’d helped bring him in. Barton. “So do I get to meet him?” Bucky was asking.

“No, uh. Kate dragged him off to California with her—Kate’s this kid—”

Bucky’s left arm was there, gleaming metal, and Steve stepped into the room to see. Bucky turned to him immediately.

“Steve,” he said. “Look.”

Bucky’s new arm looked a lot more robotic than the old one had. He showed it off, rotating the hand and flexing the fingers, and Steve tried not to look ridiculously sappy in front of a SHIELD agent. It was so much more like _Bucky_ , even if Bucky was carefully avoiding mentioning or comparing it to the old arm.

“SHIELD’s paying for it?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.”

“Injury occurred in the course of his duties,” said Barton. “It’s standard procedure.”

“SHIELD has a _standard procedure_ for one of their agents coming back from the dead?”

“Yep. Happens a lot. Okay, if you’re done I have an actual job to do,” Barton said, and Steve tried not to glare at him. “Barnes, call me.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, smiling, and Steve forced himself to relax.

“So did you know him when you were a—an agent?” Steve asked on their way to the front desk.

“Little bit.” Bucky grinned a little. “He was the competition.”

They went out onto the New York street, Bucky wrapping his arm around Steve’s shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the sources for the title and chapter titles. This can be taken as a playlist for the fic, if you make allowances for my eclectic taste in music and even more eclectic sense of humour.
> 
> “Weight of the World” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club  
> “Good, Bad, Ugly” by Ani DiFranco  
> “From Eden” by Hozier  
> “Falling for the First Time” by the Barenaked Ladies  
> “Fidelity” by Regina Spektor  
> “Pictures of You” by The Last Goodnight  
> “Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)” by Arcade Fire  
> “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon  
> “Short Skirt Long Jacket” by Cake  
> “Gone” by Matt Nathanson  
> “Apartment Story” by The National  
> “Fake Palindromes” by Andrew Bird  
> “In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company” by The Dead South  
> “Black Sheep” by Metric  
> “Set Yourself on Fire” by Stars  
> “Come On” by Letters to Cleo  
> “Superhero” by Ani DiFranco  
> “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Bruce Cockburn
> 
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2yalMzxA2xKLAmFdggmy_tR5uYroWk9F)


End file.
